Once her high school basketball game started, Harris didn’t need to look to know her mom, Cheryl Cheatham, wasn’t there. The lack of court-side commentary said enough.

The void left by Cheatham’s absence was unmistakable to Harris, then a high school sophomore for Hoover (Ala.) High School. Cheatham didn’t have her daughter’s athletic ability, but “she swore up and down she knew all about basketball.”

And she let everyone know it.

Referees.

Coaches.

Even Harris’ teammates were fair game for criticism when Cheatham felt it necessary, causing her daughter to shake her head more than once.

“You can’t yell at other people’s kids, mom,” Harris would said.

Now a member of the Arkansas women’s basketball team, Harris would give anything to hear her mom’s voice today. The senior would let her yell at anyone during a game, as much as she liked, and the pride would far outweigh any hint of embarrassment.

Cheatham died from stomach cancer on Nov. 18, 2006. Her passing came one year to the month after she was originally diagnosed.

That year was anything but a time of healing and saiding good-bye for an admittedly naive Harris and her two sisters, Ashley and Jordan. It was a time of darkness, purposely so as the family did its best to keep the severity of Cheatham’s condition from her daughters.

Even on the day Cheatham was diagnosed, Harris didn’t know her mom was at the hospital until after the fact. That was the day Harris looked for her mother in the stands, and at the time she was frustrated her mom couldn’t get away from her job as an optometrist to come watch her game.

Harris’ reaction after she found out about the stomach tumor, the size of an orange, was one of shock and anger — at the news and herself for being upset about her mom’s absence.

Cheatham’s treatment wasn’t easy. She went through stomach surgery to remove the tumor, followed by chemotherapy. However, the cancerous cells soon returned, and Cheatham did her best to prepare the girls — sitting them down one day with their step-father for a family conversation.

The message behind the words didn’t fully sink in for Harris. Even after an uncle sat the girls down and told them Cheatham probably wasn’t going to make it, Harris thought he was talking about four to five years down the road.

“I was just thinking, ‘This is (like) the flight attendants talking about the safety precautions ... OK, mom, you’re going to be fine,’” Harris said.

Little by little, however, Harris put the pieces together.

“The one thing I remember is she was losing her hair, and we went to pick up wigs,” Harris said. “She found a really nice wig that she liked, and I remember I walked into the room and she was like, ‘I don’t want you to see my without my wig on.’

“That’s when it hit me; it was that serious.”

To this day, Harris despises the smell of hospitals. The stench takes her back to the countless hours by her mom’s side.

Those hours weren’t a fun time for Harris. Cheatham couldn’t talk much and would often become frustrated — so Harris would sit and think.

When Cheatham did pass, Harris didn’t cry. It wasn’t until the funeral, when she saw her mother, that the tears began to flow and the realization set in about what had just taken place.

Reality set in quickly after that for Harris and her sisters. A difficult relationship with their stepfather led to them moving in with their father. Robert Harris and Cheatham had divorced when Lyndsaid Harris was 10, but he had remained a fixture in his daughters’ lives.

Following Cheatham’s passing, Robert Harris — who lived 50 miles away in Tuscaloosa, Ala. — rented and moved into an apartment in Hoover so the girls could remain in familiar surroundings at school. He also allowed Cheatham’s mother, the girls’ grandmother who had lived with them since Lyndsaid Harris was 7, to move in with them.

Harris’ basketball ability, which Robert Harris said was evident from the time she started playing at 5 years old, began to manifest itself fully in the wake of the loss of her mom. The little girl who talked at eight months old, the one who led her sisters into battles of will against her parents, the extrovert who never met someone she couldn’t get along with, had found her escape.

The game didn’t come without conflict. Playing also triggered difficult memories of her mom’s battle for Lyndsaid Harris, and by the time she was finished with high school, Harris was ready to put those memories to rest for good.

She was one of the top recruits in the country and could have stayed closer to home, but Harris was ready for a fresh start. She found just that at Arkansas.

“I knew she could handle it,” Robert Harris said. “She was 17 years old when she graduated, but she was able to handle it. I knew her personality was such that she could handle it on her own with minimum supervision.”

Lyndsaid Harris handled the move well, indeed. She’s had a standout career for the Razorbacks, starting with All-Southeastern Conference honors as a freshman, and currently ranks fourth in the league in 3-point field goals made this season.

Despite tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee at the SEC Tournament last year, Harris worked her way back into playing shape during the offseason. She wasn’t about to redshirt and be deprived of a final go-around with the four fellow seniors she came in with at Arkansas.

Harris has struggled at times this season on the court while recovering from her knee injury, and she faced grief again in December with the passing of her grandmother. She’s overlooked her personal struggles, though, by appreciating the growth of her teammates — particularly their maturity during a program-best eight-game SEC win streak.

Going through what she’s battled at such a young age will do that for a person. It’s also made Harris a sounding board of sorts for her teammates and friends — such as when she talked with teammate Ashley Daniels following her mother’s diagnosis of breast cancer.

“I try to be there, just for everybody, because I know what it’s like,” Harris said. “It’s tough. My biggest thing that I tell people is, ‘It’s never not going to be an issue. It’s never not going to hurt. You’re never going to get over it, but you’ll get stronger and you’ll be able to cope with it better.’”

The Razorbacks opened conference play this season with a four-game losing streak, but their rebound has put Arkansas on the verge of its first NCAA Tournament appearance since the 2002-03 season.

The appearance would be a milestone for both the program and Harris, who often thinks of other future milestones in her life — like getting married or having a child — when she thinks of her mom.

Harris regrets that she won’t be able to share those experiences with her mother, but she insists on being grateful for all that she does have.

That starts with her family — both blood and teammates.

Besides, all it takes during a game is for Daniels’ mom to tear into a referee and Harris feels right at home — with her mom watching.

“She’s always with me,” Harris said. “I feel her all the time.”

Harris will take the court in Bud Walton Arena for the final time when Arkansas hosts Mississippi State today. Countless friends and family members will be in attendance for Senior Day, including Robert Harris, who will make the nine-hour drive from Alabama.

Lyndsaid Harris is on track to graduate in May and plans to attend graduate school and pursue her goal of becoming a sports agent.

More importantly, she’s on track in life.

“Everybody goes through something, but I don’t know how many people go through losing a parent early in life,” Arkansas coach Tom Collen said. “That’s a little tougher than what most people experience.

“... Sometimes, if you can deal with it, it can be the bridge that carries you on to being and accomplishing great things. I think she’s found a way to do that, to keep her mom in her heart.”